Despite placing detailed, documented evidence before the Commission for Air Quality Management—including submissions on aviation emissions, railway pollution, and real-time urban congestion impacts—the latest report by its so-called “committee of experts” fails to address the most critical contributors to air pollution.
How can a serious policy document completely sideline aviation and railways, both major and continuous sources of emissions in urban clusters? Why are thermal power plants, waste-to-energy units, and landfills mentioned only in passing, without any credible quantification of their pollution load?
Equally concerning is the deafening silence on dust pollution—the most visible and immediate urban hazard. Encroachments on roads, unpaved shoulders, illegal parking on bus bays (meant for public transport), and rampant misuse of public spaces by parking mafias, vendors, and dealers have turned city roads into dust corridors. Add to this non-synchronized traffic signals and chronic congestion, and we have a perfect, man-made pollution machine—conveniently ignored.
This is not merely an academic lapse—it is a failure of governance and accountability.
When institutions tasked with safeguarding public health choose to overlook inconvenient truths, reports become rituals, not remedies. Citizens are then left battling not just pollution, but also institutional indifference masked as expertise.
If this is the level of “expertise” guiding national policy, one is compelled to ask—
are we serious about clean air, or just about clean reports? Image Courtesy – ChatGPT
Here is the link to the report – https://caqm.nic.in/WriteReadData/LINKS/AQI%20Report%20V5%20Final637d7a8a-8dad-44fb-9c8c-8be0dfe42839.pdf